


if you left me behind

by ScottieIsImpatient



Series: if you left me behind [1]
Category: Star Trek: Enterprise
Genre: Angst, Angst with no happy ending, Dark, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-24
Updated: 2020-08-24
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:07:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26092357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScottieIsImpatient/pseuds/ScottieIsImpatient
Summary: Red hands. Red clothes. Red blood."Hang in there, Commander. You'll be okay."
Relationships: Malcolm Reed & Charles "Trip" Tucker III
Series: if you left me behind [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1894453
Comments: 7
Kudos: 18





	if you left me behind

**Author's Note:**

> Oh, hey, look, it's a sad fic! What a surprise!
> 
> I'm too impatient to wait until I've finished my current fic (as you can tell by my pseudo) so I'm publishing this now haha. Hooray for no self control!

Red. It was all he could see. Red hands, red clothes. The grass beneath them, once a lush green, tainted with the horrible colour.

Red hands. Red clothes. Red grass.

Red blood.

“You’re going to be fine,” he heard himself say. His gaze was on the injured man lying in front of him, on the piercing blue eyes full of such a pain he’d never seen before. So clear yet so distant. _I’m not losing you now. Not yet._ “Hang in there, Commander. You’ll be okay.”

Red blood. So much blood.

Lieutenant Reed lifted his head to glare at the darkening sky, searching for any sign of the shuttlepod _Enterprise_ promised to bring down. It could not have been more than ten seconds since his comm in and yet it felt like forever.

The rocks jutting into his knees made themselves known at the slightest shift. Reed jumped and Tucker writhed under the sudden movement, hissing in pain. “Sorry, sorry,” the lieutenant whispered. His voice was strangled by sobs and pollen that hung permanently in the air. “Hang in there, sir.”

A garbled sound came from the blond man below him. Realizing he was trying to talk, Reed leaned in.

“Not ‘sir’,” said Tucker softly. “Trip.”

“Trip,” Reed corrected.

The commander smiled – blood dribbled down his chin.

Keep him comfortable, Phlox had said. Reed looked up at the cliff and then at his injured commander. The drop must have been over thirty metres – keeping him comfortable after such an event was difficult.

Reed used to think he thrived on difficult tasks. Now he wasn’t so sure.

Stomach sinking, he realized that Tucker’s eyes had begun to droop. “Hey.” He patted the commander’s cheek lightly. It was feverishly warm. “Commander. _Trip._ Don’t you fall away on me like this…”

“Already did the fallin’,” came the short response after a terrifying few second of silence. Reed let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

Tucker’s own breathing had turned wheezy and shallow as his body fought to keep him alive. Tears ran freely from his eyes now. They hadn’t much time. Reed lay a hand on his arm and smiled a smile he hoped looked reassuring. “Hey, look at me,” he whispered.

Tucker’s clouded blue eyes shifted slowly to gaze into Reed’s tear-stained grey ones. “Focus on me,” the lieutenant choked out. _Not the pain,_ he added in his mind. Above them, the hum of an engine alerted them of an approaching shuttlepod.

“You hear that?” He pointed at the sky. It broke his heart when Trip’s eyes moved to follow his finger and the briefest hint of hope flashed in them. “That’s _Enterprise._ A shuttle. Coming to take you home.”

“Home,” Tucker repeated.

Reed nodded, no longer caring about the tears that ran down his face. He took Tucker’s hand and intertwined their fingers, shocked at how still the commander’s was when he himself was shaking like a leaf.

So much blood.

“Home,” said Tucker again. Then a smile spread across his lips and his eyelids fluttered shut. “Thank you.”

_For what?_ Reed thought. He watched and listened, their hands still linked, as Tucker drew in a single breath, releasing it so disturbingly steady compared to his final few.

He dared not move, save for the odd blink as tears clouded his vision. He sat beside his commander – his friend – eyes fixed on the lax face as if hoping it’ll reanimate and a spark will fill those bright blue eyes again and a southern drawl will exclaim, “ _what’re you cryin’ about, Lieutenant?”_

He did not move when Phlox and a medical crewman came crashing through the trees, med-kits in hand. He did not move when Captain Archer himself sank to his knees at Tucker’s side, his hands hovering over the commander’s body as if unsure what to do.

“You were too late, sir,” whispered Reed. It was not an accusation and Archer was aware of this.

“I know,” the captain replied.

Reed nodded and moved his gaze back down to Tucker. Lifting his free hand up, he wiped the blood from the commander’s chin. “You’ll be alright,” he murmured. The odd statement earned him strange glances that he was thoroughly happy to ignore.

It won’t be until everyone was back on the ship that Reed will realize the words he’d spoken were for himself.


End file.
